Monday, April 21, 2008

felt.

oh boy. i am back. two excuses for my long absence: the first is that i had to give my dad back his camera, and the second is that i wasn't producing anything worth photographing anyways. then my hodgepodge art show happened, and my class happened, and eryk and i discovering toy cameras happened, and my new digital that lish gave me happened, and suddenly there's a lot to talk about here.

for now, let's reach back to the hodgepodge art show. it's called "felt" and it's currently up in colvin hall at umaine for two more weeks. i installed everything last january, but was only recently able to snap some pics. it's a weird mix of things i'm insanely proud of and things i want to forget. i'll focus on the prouder moments.

these are tape casts of my index fingers.

(detail)

somebody thought it would be a good idea to rip some down.

but that's really alright with me. considering it's a public building and a dorm building, and considering that the fingers look maybe a little gross and dirty to some (anyone i've shown them to, at least), i was expecting a little vandailism.

are these piccies too dark? enh.

alright, i take it back. this particular piece isn't really a "proud" moment, but it had much more potential (and still does). i took all the felt from the furniture after my move, cut it into fish scales, sewed them into strips. the strips, individually, are beautiful - they resemble spinal columns - and i don't know why i didn't just install them that way. i need to revamp this piece, but it was still a fun experiment. that's what it's all about though, right?

this was inspired by a joyce wieland piece i saw in ottawa last summer. her work, along with richard prince and jenny holzer, has been stuck in my head a lot lately- basically, anything with a large emphasis on text. i've had countless professors tell me countless times to not rely on text because it can become a crutch, but i find it can be a really powerful tool in the right situations. font is so beautiful. "i dealt" is like a headline, to me. it's a way of combining my love of newsdesign into my art.